So I See... Konting Pananaw... LITO BANAYO

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Another boat sank off the waters of Batangas, and twelve people are reported to have died. Another 42 have survived. On the basis of the arithmetic, Marina officials say the boat was overloaded, because it had registered capacity for only 42 passengers. Soon, when the victims shall have been buried, the issue of maritime safety will be forgotten. Months ago, another boat capsized off the waters of Calayan Island off Sta. Ana in Cagayan. I don’t even remember how many perished. The same reason was given by our maritime “safety” officials --- overloading plus big waves.

Each time a boat, a ferry, a ship capsizes, the Coast Guard and the Marina belatedly discover that these vessels were overloaded when they left their last port of call. It happens all the time, and we forget all the time. Worse, neither the executive nor the legislature seem to care, after the tears of surviving families have dried.

And we are all of 7107 islands, a piece of geography that all know. What a country!

* * * The Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) has asked the DND to look into reports that New York Times and International Herald Tribune correspondent Carlos Conde, who once headed the National Union of Journalists of the Philipines, is listed in a 2007 “order of battle” by the intelligence unit of the Philippine Army’s 10th Infantry Division in Southern Mindanao.

Journalists normally shrug off these lists, and in the time of Ferdinand Marcos, it was even a distinction of sorts if you were, kuno, listed in the OB. But with the spate of unresolved murders and killings of suspected activists and journalists in this country, FOCAP, and for that matter, the entire journalistic community, has reason to express fear and apprehension. Fact is, a Davao City peasant, Cesar Pojas was also on the same list, and he was shot dead in May last year.Conde had bared last week that he found his name listed with more than 100 members of left-leaning groups in a document titled “JCICC ‘AGILA’ 3rd QTR 2007 OB VALIDATION RESULT,” said to be an intelligence paper from the Southern Mindanao Army division. FOCAP says there had been previous instances when members of the press were “unjustly associated with alleged enemies of the state while reporting on developing events in the country.”

What has happened to the “missing” Jonas Burgos, abducted by suspected military operatives more than two years ago? Only his mother Editha and our fellow opinion writer Ambassador Rey Arcilla keeps counting the days when Jonas unexpectedly disappeared, a case yet unexplained by police officers to this day. Whatever have happened to Sherlyn Cadapan and Rey Empeno? Only their parents seem to care, their tears never having dried up.

How many else are listed, perhaps “targeted”, in the order of battle? And whose order of battle? The Army? The ISAFP? The commander-in-chief’s? What a country.

* * * People no longer care. They no longer get shocked by corruption most gross. They no longer feel rage at officials who wantonly do as they please, unmindful that they betray the public trust. All that matters is power and more money for the greedy, and all that matters for the rest of benighted humanity is survival. What a country, indeed!

* * *

Happiness is buying a lotto ticket, in the vain hope that one might hit the jackpot. Happiness is watching Wowowee, better to participate in contests that tend to humiliate one’s personal dignity, hoping to win a few thousands, or more. Happiness is getting a copy of the latest sex video of perverts like Hayden Kho and his bevy of bed partners.

Remember when some poll sometime listed Filipinos as among the “happiest people on earth”? In the lingua franca, we deride people whose pursuits constitute “mababaw ang kaligayahan”. But in a larger sense, because we cannot see beyond the tips of our noses, because we cannot appreciate the issues that affect our lives, our well-being and our future, we are all “mababaw ang kaligayahan”. The happiness index is so shallow. Never mind the quality of life, for as long as there is a Willie Revillame to regale us, and a cup of instant noodles to pass off the hunger pangs.

What a country!

* * *

Yet many still look at the elections of 2010 as “solution” to the kind of life we suffer in these benighted parts. We are enthused by 30-second television commercials, labeled “info-mercials”, as if we are informed by the inanity of slogans created by some advertising genius trying to conjure images of “matulungin”, “mabait”, “maawain”, and “madaling lapitan”, all those stupid benchmarks of leadership found by pollsters to be “desirable traits” to the Filipino voter.

Even former President Joseph Estrada, who won overwhelmingly in 1998 but was ousted by a coup in 2001 by his own chief of staff, now offers himself as that “solution”. He wants to run for president once more, despite the Constitutional edict against “any re-election”.

But, some of the same lawyers who advised him against allowing the “second envelope” to be opened at a critical juncture of the impeachment trial, thus breaking the floodgates for early political denouement, are now telling him that he is qualified to run despite what many in their profession consider an “open and shut” interpretation of the fundamental law. “Any re-election” means any, not an immediately succeeding re-election, and Fr. Joaquin Bernas dug up the records of the arguments of the constitutional commissioners to show the very clear intent of the framers.

UNO spokesman Adel Tamano, president of the Pamantasan ng Maynila and a lawyer himself, defends Erap against those who claim that the latter is no longer eligible to run once more. “Personally, I would much prefer a president who wins the support of the Filipino people despite what some claim as prohibitions to his candidacy than to have a president who is not prohibited from running but will cheat her way to the presidency,” Tamano said.

Come again, Adel? That is good rhetorical flourish, and I agree with you that our common bête noire cheated her way to the presidency, but isn’t that statement a non sequitur? Sure I would take Erap anytime against Gloria, but, does he qualify to be a candidate for another election? And pray tell, who will interpret the Constitution? The Supreme Court, by which time 13 of 15 justices shall be decidedly pro-Gloria, and the remaining two, who are clearly independent, are not likely to bend the law to favour Erap either. Unless, as I once wrote in this column (The Hamlet Act, Malaya, Jan. 8, 2009), a deal, a transaction, is unseemly brokered between the oh so forgiving Erap and the oh so fearful Gloria.

“The real issue that we Filipinos should be discussing about is not who is prohibited from running but rather what type of president do we need in 2010", the UNO spokesman declared. Pray tell, Atty. Adel, in your heart of hearts, and against everyone else, do you really believe the former president is “the type … we need in 2010”? Yet, if the people of these benighted parts want to elect Erap once more after losing it and blowing his chance at greatness, what can we do, except to say, what a country!

* * *

Still, our common friend, former Senate President and former Ambassador to Washington D.C., columnist Ernesto Maceda reports: “Lawyer Adel Tamano has joined the camp of Sen. Manny Villar to the disappointment of Sen. Chiz Escudero who thought Adel was firmly for him.”

Lito Banayo

Lito Banayo’s involvement in Philippine politics began with a chance encounter with the late Benigno Aquino, Jr. in the spring of 1981, at the Washington Hotel in Washington D.C. Ninoy Aquino was then on exile, after having undergone heart bypass surgery. That started a series of week-end visits to Ninoy’s home in Boston.

In the fall of 1982, Lito decided to come home to the Philippines after two-year stay in the United States, and as he bade goodbye to Ninoy, he was asked to help the then fledging political opposition in the country.

Lito Banayo asked Ninoy who he would report to, and was told to see Doy Laurel. Banayo was quizzical, for the Laurels had been Marcos’ political padrinos in the past. Ninoy told him however that Doy Laurel and he grew up together and were almost like brothers. Thus did Lito Banayo enter the world of a political technician, his description for the kind of work he has been doing since.

He helped Doy Laurel and Eva Estrada Kalaw organized the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO) which became the major coalition against the Marcos regime. At a time when media was controlled and Marcos’ monolithic political party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) was all over, UNIDO put up a difficult but nonetheless successful struggle.

In the 1984 Batasang Pambansan elections, the UNIDO coalition won 60 of 180 seats, with an overwhelming majority in Metro Manila and key capital cities. Lito Banayo was deputy spokesperson and deputy campaign manager of that national campaign, working under Ernesto Maceda, who later became Senate President, and Alfonso Policarpio, Ninoy’s publicist.

When Ninoy Aquino returned to the Philippines after years of exile, it was Lito Banayo who, along with Erik Espina, coined the welcome slogan “Ninoy, Hindi Ka Nag-iisa,” a welcome greeting that eventually became a political battlecry after the latter was assassinated at the tarmac of the international airport.

When Cory Aquino, Ninoy’s widow, and Doy Laurel, his childhood friend, later challenged Ferdinand Marcos in the historic “snap” elections of February 1986, Lito was one of the major campaign technicians in an effort that drew many volunteers from all walks of life.

He was appointed Postmaster-General after the Edsa uprising that resulted in the downfall of Marcos and the ascent of Aquino. At the postal office, he initiated major systemic reforms, and initiated its transformation from a budget-dependent office under the transport and communications department into an autonomous government corporation now called Philippine Postal Corporation.

He has become political consultant to various names in Philippine politics – Senator Orlando Mercado, Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan, and now Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. He was consultant too of Speaker Ramon Mitra, Jr., Ronaldo Zamora, Manuel A. Roxas III and Hernando B. Perez, all congressmen at the time.

In 1992, he was campaign spokesman of the Mitra-Fernan presidential tandem. In 1995, he handled the campaign of Senator, later Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan. In 1998, he was in the campaign team that helped Joseph Ejercito Estrada become president of the land. His erstwhile principal, Mercado, was named campaign manager. During the term of President Estrada, he was Secretary-General of Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, the political party of the then President.

He served as General Manager of the Philippine Tourism Authority from June 30, 1998 to November 3, 2000. He was also concurrently appointed as Presidential Adviser for Political Affairs with cabinet rank, by President Joseph Estrada. Although he resigned from the Estrada cabinet earlier, he was with the deposed president until his last hours in Malacanang.

In 2001, he was campaign manager for then retired PNP director-general Ping Lacson’s difficult but highly successful run for the Philippine Senate. He also helped Ping Lacson as a contender for the presidency in 2004, as well as Manila Mayor Lito Atienza in administrative matters at City Hall during his term.

Lito Banayo finished Economics at Letran College, then undertook graduate studies at the Ateneo Business School, as well as the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration.

He is native of San Pablo City, Laguna, and Malolos, Bulacan, but his family has moved to Butuan City in Agusan del Norte since the early sixties, although he himself has lived in Manila throughout most of his life. He is married and is blessed with three children.